There are an array of products on the market to assist visually impaired persons accomplish various tasks. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,306,152, 4,000,565, and 3,874,097, teach devices which assist the visually impaired in reading. Before the present invention, however, there has been no device which conveniently assists the visually impaired to identify objects, such as clothing, cans, boxes or bottles of food or drink, medicines, compact discs or a host of other useful items. To accomplish this, the visually impaired heretofore had to rely upon sighted individuals, thereby decreasing their independence and increasing the time it takes to accomplish certain tasks.
The present invention permits a visually impaired individual to identify objects using a hand held bar code scanner having recording capabilities. Heretofore, scanning devices which recognized bar codes, i.e. UPC, or universal pricing codes, have been widely used in business. They are seen in stores to identify the price of goods, in the shipping industry to track goods, in general industry for inventory control, and elsewhere. Typically, these devices consist of a sensing device electronically connected to a receiving device which has information pre-coded into it. These devices allow the user to identify a particular object which has already received a bar code imprint. They do not, however, permit the user the option of entering or deleting data from the system.
There is need, therefore, for a convenient, easy to use, hand held device which provides the visually impaired with the means to use existing UPC bar codes, or to apply new bar codes to objects, scan them, record information regarding a particular object for later retrieval and delete unwanted information.